PRESS INDIGENOUS INSTRUMENTS
OF MEXICO/MESOAMERICA VENEZUELA "When I met Christopher García a couple of years ago, as he rehearsedand played one of his pieces for for ancestral Mexican percussion instruments and wind quintet, I rediscovered something I had somehow lost track of throughout the years: a musician rooted in the rituals of magical performance. Beyond the external aspects of power, virtuosity or any other relative term of comparison, there was something unique coming across, akin to a religious experience, through his beats and rhythms. I think Christopher is definitely on the path of connecting the objects he strikes or shakes with the deeper currents of the soul. That's what I felt when he played; he's not only resuscitating old instruments, he's on a different search." COMPOSER PAUL DESENNE UNITED STATES "Tonight we celebrate various master composers in the history of Mexican music. We open with the classic SINFONIA INDIA composed by Carlos Chavez in 1935 We present it with the original concept of Chavez’s first performances of the piece, using a battery of ancient andcontemporary indigenous instruments from Mesmaoermca and Mexico To accomplish this, we invited Christopher Garcia, a virtuoso musician who specializes in Aztec, Mayan, and other indigenous musics from Mesoamerica. He has loaned us his instruments for the performance and has instructed our Philharmonia students performance technique on these unique instruments. Special Thanks to Christopher Garcia for his invaluable assistance in the preparation of this performance." STEVEN LOZA UCLA CHAIR OF GLOBAL JAZZ STUDIES; PROFESSOR; ETHNOMUSICOLOGY, GLOBAL JAZZ STUDIES UNITED STATES "The recording was beautiful....subtle tones and colors, visionary most definitely. Great artists who walk their own path is what I most admire and courage....onward and upward in LIFE and MUSIC.." RA KALAM BOB MOSES GERMANY "While he has devoted much of his life to learning indigenous music Garcia also revels in playing the new and unexpected…..Garcia's musical vocabulary not only spans centuries and cultures it's also spontaneous." DEUTSCHE WELLE GERMANYS INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTER UNITED STATES "RESONANCIA, the new album from Christopher Garcia's ORQUESTA INDIGENA, lives up to the name on every level -- sound, spirit, and concept. The low drum vibrations can make you feel the heartbeat of a sleeping dragon. The high rattles can sound like a dance of skeleton elves. The wooden and clay flutes raise images of ancient Mesoamerican temples, while some of the female vocalizings draw you inside a cathedral -- and if you've been in a Mexican or Peruvian cathedral, you know how thoroughly the invaders' religion was transformed by indigenous influences..... Some of the beats even carry the universality of the blues. We hear calls to action, the threat of war, a reverence for peace......." METALJAZZ.COM SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MX “The multifaceted musician, Christopher García is a renowned composer, multiple instrumentalist and improviser, originally from Los Angeles, California, with a long and brilliant career in the musical interpretation of the original peoples of the world. He has given concerts in dozens of countries and has a deep knowledge of the indigenous instruments of America, which he plays with mastery and inspiration. Diverse percussions, wind instruments, and songs of the soul that connect us directly with the Earth.” NEWS SAN MIGUEL MEXICO CITY, MX "Christopher Garcia is frequently invited as a soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras in Europe and America's to play instruments that are rarely associated with music. of the European tradition including TlapanHuehuetl, Teponaztli, Huilacapiztli and Atecocolli from Mesoamerica, alongside tabla from North India, kanjira, and ghatam from South India...." TIEMPO LIBRE MAGAZINE ARTE Y CULTURA EN MEXICO UNITED STATES “The music this gentleman creates is organic, while at the same time being virtuosic, and compelling on many different levels....Garcia's compositions combine musical sonorities and timbres of the ancients with the present to create new resonances, timbres, and sonorities previously unimagined…” PERFORMING ARTS LIVE MEXICO "Christopher Garcia is a critically acclaimed as a composer, and virtuosic improviser on instruments not usually associated with just one musician including drumset, marimba, and instruments of north and south India and breath, string and percussion instruments of Mesoamerica, in every music combination possible - Avant, classical, folkloric, indigenous, jazz, rock, and world, with a virtual who’s who of musicians with performances in 28 countries on 5 continents." ATENCION SAN MIGUEL ALLENDE HOLLAND "the man understands the art of drumming) tight, flawless and full of passion, he goes on in his solo and then seamlessly continues. Very very good." DUTCH PUBLIC BROADCASTING UNITED STATES "Christopher Garcia is a native of East Los Angeles, who attended the California Institute of the Arts in 1979 and continues to compose, improvise, concertize, lecture, and share his personal experiences with indigenous music, instruments, culture, and culture bearers, and history of Mesoamerica at universities and concert halls worldwide along with the physiological effects of music, rhythm, and drumming which continue to be validated daily through neuroscience, confirming the information left to us by the ancients....." OTIS ARTS INSTITUTE MEXICO "We continue to commemorate our ancestors, this time, in a special way with a concert by Christopher García, a multifaceted musician who visits the Botanical Garden to awaken our senses with ancestral musical instruments...." JARDIN BOTANICO CHARCO DEL INGENIO SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, UNITED STATES “with the help of Professor Steven Loza we are luckiy to have found a musician who owns these instruments in Los Angeles, and is an expert at playing and teaching them, so I would like to thank Professor Chris Garcia, he was responsible also to help us prepare this piece together for the percussion section” CONDUCTOR BRUNO NASCIMIENTO UCLA SYMPHONY UNITED STATES "In a dynamic blend of tradition and modernity, composer and musician Christopher Garcia performs original compositions using indigenous breath, string and percussion instruments of Mesoamerica and Mexico" LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY This LA Made programs are made possible with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. INDIGENOUS INSTRUMENTS OF MEXICO/MESOAMERICA UNITED STATES "The recording was beautiful....subtle tones and colors, visionary most definitely. Great artists who walk their own path is what I most admire and courage....onward and upward in LIFE and MUSIC.." RA KALAM BOB MOSES MEXICO "Christopher Garcia is a critically acclaimed as a composer, and virtuosic improviser on instruments not usually associated with just one musician including drumset, marimba, and instruments of north and south India and breath, string and percussion instruments of Mesoamerica, in every music combination possible - Avant, classical, folkloric, indigenous, jazz, rock, and world, with a virtual who’s who of musicians with performances in 28 countries on 5 continents." ATENCION SAN MIGUEL ALLENDE UNITED STATES "Christopher Garcia is a native of East Los Angeles, who attended the California Institute of the Arts in 1979 and continues to compose, improvise, concertize, lecture, and share his personal experiences with indigenous music, instruments, culture, and culture bearers, and history of Mesoamerica at universities and concert halls worldwide along with the physiological effects of music, rhythm, and drumming which continue to be validated daily through neuroscience, confirming the information left to us by the ancients....." OTIS ARTS INSTITUTE MEXICO "We continue to commemorate our ancestors, this time, in a special way with a concert by Christopher García, a multifaceted musician who visits the Botanical Garden to awaken our senses with ancestral musical instruments...." JARDIN BOTANICO CHARCO DEL INGENIO SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, UNITED STATES “with the help of Professor Steven Loza we are luckiy to have found a musician who owns these instruments in Los Angeles, and is an expert at playing and teaching them, so I would like to thank Professor Chris Garcia, he was responsible also to help us prepare this piece together for the percussion section” CONDUCTOR BRUNO NASCIMIENTO UCLA SYMPHONY |
"Christopher Garcia knows where the deep water runs .... crouched over a floor arrayed with nonstandard instruments: water drums, hand drums, a couple of gongs, a tawitol, a couple of slate slabs that looked as if the Ten Commandments might've been etched on them.... at one point Garcia removed the gourd resonator from a water drum, scooped water into it and poured it back into the base -- water into water....The tacit acknowledgment of eternal cycles marked one more reason why we sat so quietly, hearing and feeling things words can't express.” METAL JAZZ .com "Garcia's compositions reflect a lifelong pursuit to put himself in the most creative musical situations possible with percussion and breath instruments he has learned along with performance practices, musical vernaculars, sounds and music which he has been immersed in since 1979 to the present. Gleaned thru rehearsals, performances, compositions and research, and sitting across from learning and/or playing alongside great musicians from various musical cultures…… His music resonates organically, and never seems contrived or slapped together as he draws from the rich color of sounds at his disposal, and where and how he chooses to place the silences within and around his compositions and performances. His music has a rhythmic complexity that propels and co exists with memorable melodies that tie the pieces together - combining and extending traditions his is a unique voice in the tradition of composer/performer/improviser with instruments not generally associated with the instruments of the western "classical world." LATINO LA |